


Harry Potter and the Aunt from Hell

by nickahontas



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Reddit Prompt, bellatrix is so much fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:27:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23163979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickahontas/pseuds/nickahontas
Summary: My take on the Reddit prompt:"Bellatrix Black is a good guy and a member of the Order of the Phoenix. She's still insane."______Bellatrix Black forced her way into the world with blood and pain, her pretty face contorted from all of her nonsensical screaming. It was how she would spend most of her time in it.(Not abandoned. I just have to get in a really dark headspace to write this and I haven’t been in a good enough place to do it recently. 09/2020)
Relationships: (poor remus), (unrequited lol), Bellatrix Black Lestrange & Harry Potter, Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Remus Lupin, Sirius Black & Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Comments: 25
Kudos: 305





	1. Chapter 1

Bellatrix Black forced her way into the world with blood and pain, her pretty face contorted from all of her nonsensical screaming. It was how she would spend most of her time in it. 

There was never any hope for her. It wouldn’t have mattered if she were a Longbottom or a McMillan or a muggle. Fortunately, she was born a Black, a wizarding family that honed her obsessive nature, tempered it into a weapon for the ages. 

She went to school. It was okay. She didn’t have friends so much as people that were too afraid to tell her to go away. She got married. That was okay too, she guessed. He didn’t try to force her to have children or stop experimenting and dueling, like some husbands did. He was far too afraid to tell her no.

Life was okay, if not terribly boring. Anything fun died too quickly to provide any true satisfaction. Her only true consolation was her family. She worshipped her parents, adored her sisters, but she really, truly loved her cousins. Sirius was always her favorite. Brash, defiant, confident, unapologetic, intelligent. He was everything a Black scion should be, and then he had to go and meet James Potter and get himself burnt off the family tree. Regulus became her next favorite. He too was everything a Black should be, if not a little boring. 

Everything was boring. Everyone was boring. 

And then she met the Dark Lord. 

He most certainly was not boring. His war was most certainly not boring. Everything Bellatrix had been denied was encouraged.   
  
And then one monumental night, little Reggie comes to her, shaking with fury and terror and talking about soul magic and halfbloods and saying, “It was all a lie! I thought he was pretending to be insane to inspire terror, but he really, truly is. He’s just as mad as you, cousin. He’ll burn Britain down just to reign over the ashes.”

Bella watches him pace across the Lestrange library in amusement. 

“Our family has ruled since before the Romans sailed across the Channel,” he rants. “I won’t bow to him. I won’t make us into something less than we are because some upstart orphan was cast aside by Albus fucking Dumbledore.”

He spins on his heel and claws through his black hair.

“Well?!” He demands, spit flying across the room. “Are you going to take me to him? Or are you going to prove them all wrong? I know you, Bella. You might be a sadistic sycophant but we made you that. We could have chucked you in Saint Mungo's and left you to rot, but we didn't. Will you give us your loyalty? Will you be our weapon? Or are you going to prove them all right and turn me in like a brainless, starry eyed witch fresh off the Express?"

Bella throws her head back and cackles. This is most certainly not going to be boring. 

  
They go to Andromeda first. Andromeda with her round belly filled with dirty blood, her husband standing beside her, his hand tight around his wand. He's fair haired and chubby and utterly mediocre. 

"Merlin, Dromeda! Couldn't you have soiled yourself with one of the handsome ones? Rodolphus might be spineless, but at least he's nice to look at." 

Reggie runs a hand down his face. He no longer looks eighteen. His eyes have new lines and the corner of his lips are permanently pulled down at the end. A surge of rage takes over Bella. Who is the Dark Lord to do this to her cousin? What gives him the right to-

"Please, cousin, behave yourself," Regulus whines. 

Bella scoffs, but she does. She listens to them dance around one another as Ted Tonks eyes her with an ever tightening grip on his wand. 

They go to Sirius next. Sirius with his wild eyes and savage smile, James and Lily Potter on one side and a werewolf on the other. Everyone is silent, staring at each other with twitching hands and aggression rolling off them in waves. It's delicious. 

Sirius barks a laugh first, Bella right on his heels. He always was her favorite. 

  
Months later, Regulus is the first to die. Kreacher appears in the dining room, wailing like a dying cat and clutching a necklace to his chest. The emeralds glint in the witch light, the frantic whispers and oozing magic a balm to Bella's frayed nerves. 

_"They are nothing. Nothing. It would take ten of them to take you down. Their screams would be a sweet lullaby, their blood-"_  
  
Bella snarls as the voice is cut off. Andromeda sniffs haughtily and holds a warded box summoned from the attic at arm's length. 

"Disgusting," she drawls. "I'll be depositing this somewhere safe." She leaves in a swirl of violet robes. She will go to Gringotts, Bella knows, and home to her mudblood after. She never craved violence like the rest of them. Sirius, by contrast, is frozen on his seat at the bench. Vengeance is filling him up slowly, singing it's own macabre lullaby inside his head.

"What was that?" Lily Potter asks. James Potter picked a pretty one at least, and clever too. Bella supposes that if new blood is as necessary as everyone seems to believe, then perhaps someone as intelligent as Lily Potter wouldn't be too disgraceful. She's certainly not boring. "It felt like...like..." She rounds on her husband. "What was it?" 

"I don't know," he says, and Bella knows he is being honest. The Potters never were very imaginative.

Lily turns to the werewolf next. 

"What was it?" 

"I don't know," he admits. 

"Did it talk to you?" she asks, voice hardly more than a whisper. 

Bella cackles. She can't help it. The girl is just so innocent. What could the Dark Lord possibly have tempted her with? Lily Potter jumps, having forgotten Bella's presence in the shock of the night's events and...Bellatrix frowns, then skims the mudblood's mind for clarity, because surely...But there it is. Grief. The girl actually mourns Regulus. 

Merlin, these fools are sentimental.

"Of course it talked to him. What dark desires called to you, pretty little girl?" Bella demands, leaning over the table. She bats her eyes for good measure. 

Potter stiffens at his wife's side, but does not try to protect her. He doesn't think she needs it. Bella will give the blood traitors that, at least. They don't treat their witches like mindless cattle. 

"What did it tell you?" Lily Potter demands. 

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours," Bella coos. 

The other witch presses her lips into a thin line and raises her chin a gesture that can only be attributed to one Severus Snape. It is that misplaced arrogance that gives Bella the answer a mere moment before the girl bites out, "Knowledge." 

"Ah," Bella says, collapsing back in her chair. "The Dark Lord has plenty enough of that. He passed much of it down to me, you know." 

Potter narrows her eyes. "You're lying." 

"She's not," Siri cuts in, his deep voice even rougher with emotion. "And she's going to put that knowledge to use tonight, aren't you, dear cousin?" 

Bella beams. Lily Potter does not. 

"Sirius?" she questions worriedly. 

Sirius Black turns his gaze to her and both Potters flinch. There is madness burning in his silver eyes. Madness, fervor, and a hunger that Bella is all too familiar with. They are doomed, she knows, deep down. The Blacks are doomed to leave the world in an explosion of hellfire if Sirius Black is to be their lord. 

It will be glorious. 

"Black blood has been spilled tonight. I intend to drown them in it.”

His chair scrapes across the stone, causing James and Lily to cringe back in their seats. Bella lingers long enough to hear Lily Potter ask, “What did it tell you, Remus?” 

“He’s a werewolf, darling,” Bella cuts in. “It told him the same thing it told me.”

She pauses at the door, throws her curls over her shoulder and smirks. 

“It told us to kill you all.”

With that, she follows her cousin out into the night, just barely managing to hold in her laughter. 

Bella helps her Lord stagger through the entryway hours later. They are both exhausted and covered in gore. James rushes down the stairs and takes his friend in his arms, dragging him up to his rooms. Lily Potter stands hugging herself in a cheap muggle robe and bare feet, looking every bit like a little girl out of her depths. 

“You’re bad for him,” she says quietly. 

“Maybe,” Bella allows, flicking a piece of brain out of her tangled hair. “Maybe I’m just bringing out what’s already there. All of us Blacks are mad in our own way.”

“You all make each other mad, you mean. Regulus wouldn’t-”

“Sweet little mudblood. Sirius didn’t even tap into the ancient Black magics tonight. Something about crossing a line, whatever good that will do. Regulus would have had no such qualms. He would have turned them inside out and left them in the middle of Diagon Alley as a promise.”

“She’s right, Lily,” a soft voice says. 

The werewolf ascends the steps from the basement, his sandy hair wild. Remus Lupin is nice to look at. Rodolphus had a sort of cruel, sharp beauty to him. Lupin’s is different. The rugged lines of his jaw and lips are accentuated by thick scars. Another tendril of angry pink flesh curls under his sleeve like a lock of unruly hair. He’s smart too, and would probably give her a bit of a challenge. Not as much as Mad Eye or Sirius, of course, but enough to make her interested. 

“But you’re right, too,” he says. “Those of us stained with dark magic grapple with it every day. It calls to me, begging me to be let out. Being here, living in this house, fighting against dark spells so often....It’s difficult. But I have you and the Marauders. You are here to remind me of what I can be. You give me hope, just as you do Sirius.”

“But what about her?” Lily asks, eyes wide and innocent. 

“Oh, sweet girl. There was never any hope for me.”

She frowns stubbornly. “That’s not right. You’re here. That’s something.”

“I’m here for my family and my lord. I couldn’t care less what happens to the rest of you.”

“Well, that may be so, but I care about what happens to you.” She draws herself up importantly, shoves her chin in the air like Severus fucking Snape. “You and I are going to be friends, Bellatrix Black.”

“Girl,” Bella snaps, playfulness gone. “I have bits of bone tangled in my hair and guts dried under my nails. I killed thirteen men tonight, and only one of them with the Killing Curse.”

Lily Potter only sniffs and tosses her hair. Bella is almost positive she’s seen Narcissa do the same thing before, in that very spot.

“Then we’ll just have to get you cleaned up, won’t we? Come on and I’ll draw up a bath. You can tell me everything Vol-“ She presses her lips together in annoyance as she remembers the taboo. “Everything the Dark Lord taught you. He might be a git, but he’s a smart one.”

Bellatrix glances at the werewolf incredulously. He just lifts one shoulder. 

Well, Bellatrix thinks, it can’t be any worse than having tea with Auntie Walburga.

Far into the night, alone in bed, Bellatrix cums to the memory of snapping Rosier’s neck, of how his arms twitched, how the bone snapped so audibly. She smiles contentedly, wondering what her new friend would have to say to that.


	2. Chapter 2

The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is incredibly disappointing. The Dark Lord held court on gilded thrones, surrounded by the opulence of history. It all makes sense in the way that she was raised to think: those of dirty blood live in the mud.

As it is, Bella is being pressured to change her ways of thinking. There are some things she wiIll never concede. The Blacks have earned their right to brag through millennia of wealth and magic. The Malfoys haven’t been around quite as long, but they are the wealthiest family in Britain. Sure some of them, like the werewolf or Lily Potter, could perhaps be a boon to magic, but most of them, like some of the ones cowering across from her, don’t deserve the chance.

There are the Prewetts and the Weasleys, who have disregarded their heritage and let their name sink into oblivion. The Browns, who are too cowardly to dwelve into their divination legacy. The Longbottoms, who are too kind to survive. Finally, there are the mudbloods, lost and confused and utterly terrified as she strolls into the abandoned muggle factory.

“Bellatrix,” Dumbledore says kindly. His robes are an atrocious paisley mess and his eyes are doing that ridiculous sparkling thing meant to lull dullards into complacency. “I have not seen you for a long time. You were one of the brightest students of your year, despite what your grades reflected.”

She doesn’t deign to reply. Instead, she stares at Alastor Moody, remembering a night of blood and ecstasy.

“I was there when you lost your eye,” she says, studying his new magical one with interest. “I think my husband might have done you a favor. Those are quite rare, you know.”

He spits on the concrete floor. “What are you here for, you mad bitch?”

She chuckles. “Why to fight for you, of course. I’ve had quite the change of heart. Been wallowing around in the mud, you know.”

Lily Potter rolls her eyes. “Really, Bella, must you antagonize them?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Bellatrix, I shall have to ask you to be on your best behavior,” Dumbledore orders calmly. “You have caused many families here today much strife. This is a war, and if you mean to fight in it, you can not cause tension in my ranks. If you cannot do that, I will be forced to sequester you in Grimmauld Place until this war is over.”

Moody scowls. “We should do that anyway. She’s a spy, Albus. No good will come of her being here. She killed thirteen men not two nights ago.”

“And I twelve,” Sirius cuts in. “Bella is loyal to the Blacks, and I am loyal to you. She doesn’t have the attention span to spy. Just send her out with the cavalry where she can do the most damage.”

Dumbledore hesitates, twirling his knobby wand between his fingers as he thinks. It’s a habit the Dark Lord had too. Did they pick it up from one another? Or is it a habit all powerful wizards have? Bella is a force of her own right and she never does it. Then again, all sorts of habits were trained out of her from a young age. Pureblood witches did not slouch, did not fidget, and most certainly did not curse.

“I’m afraid that I cannot take you on your word alone, Sirius,” Dumbledore finally says. “It would put everyone’s mind at ease if I could confirm her loyalty.”

“And waste our veritaserum? I’m having a hard time keeping up as it is,” Lily protests.

“No, dear Lily. There are other ways of learning the truth.”

Despite herself, Bellatrix can’t help but be impressed. Not many can get past her Occlumency shields, and fewer still wish to subject themselves to what awaits beyond.

“You’re a brave man, Albus Dumbledore,” she says.

Moody makes a noise in the back of his throat.

Dumbledore nods. “Would you like some privacy?”

“You’re the one that should be worried, old coot.”

He sighs, his silver beard heaving, and raises his wand.

“Legilimens,” he intones.

Dumbledore is gentle. He worms his way through cracked doors and windows. He is respectful and cautious as he strides through the maze of her mind. The Dark Lord had not been so sweet. He had struck at her walls with fangs and ripped out everything he wanted. It had been painful, terrifying, and awe-inspiring. She can feel a similar power, a similar violence, bubbling under this deceptively calm one. Dumbledore is not cruel, but he is no less terrifying.

Eventually, the headmaster’s soft presence retreats. He stares at her a long time, blue eyes suspiciously wet.

“You poor girl,” he whispers.

Bella laughs. “We’re going to lose if you hold that back. I could feel it. You’ll have to let it go or our corpses will be hanging outside the Ministry.”

Dumbledore sighs again, his shoulders dropping near to the ground.

“If I let it out, I’ll never stop.”

They send her out with the cavalry. She does what she does best, what she loves the most. She turns immaculate plans into utter chaos, burning potions ingredients and Death Eaters alike. The Order looks at her, at the glint in her eyes and the blood on her hands, and then look at Sirius and the glint in his eyes and the clean, pale skin of his hands and love him all the more.

They keep her back sometimes too. She does what she does best, what she loves the most. She turns grown wizards into sobbing husks. Mad-Eye watches peel the skin back from muscle and the muscle from bone. He watches her pluck tendons and nerves like a harp.

Lily Potter watches her do it too. She’s their healer, the only one with the patience and precision required to keep a man alive, to charm the muscle back to the bone and the skin back to the muscle, all for Bella to tear it all out again.

One cold January night, Lily Potter takes her time cleaning up. She’s always immaculate to the point of tedious. All potions masters are. It’s why Bella could never be bothered with the dreadful things.

“Spit it out, Potter. I’m hungry,” Bella complains.

Potter wrinkles her nose. “How? I can still smell....That’ll kill my appetite for days.”

The elder Rookwood had been a tough nut to crack. He held out for at least three hours, if Bella’s grumbling stomach is any indication.

“If you’re not going to get on with it, then at least take me out,” Bella grouses. She’d crucio anyone stupid enough to bring it up, but she is slowly becoming obsessed with muggle food. Particularly the kind they call fast, all greasy and salty and filling.

“I can’t. I need to speak to you in private.”

“Well I hadn’t planned on dragging the werewolf out of his kennel. Should I go fetch his leash?”

“Bella!” Lily closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Bellatrix, please. This is serious. I’m...We have to go into hiding.”

“What?!”

Several Order members glance over at them. Lily scowls and drags her into the closest room. The headquarters had recently been moved to an abandoned office building, filled with monstrous things called copiers. It almost made Bella feel sorry for the muggles. Almost. It had taken them so long to learn how to copy a paper, and to have to use something so ridiculous to do it. It’s pitiful. They should be begging to be supplicated.

“I’m not supposed to tell anyone any of this,” Lily begins.

“Then don’t,” Bella says flatly.

“I need your help.”

Bella rolls her eyes. “Spit it out, Potter.”

Lily chews on her lip, shoves a thick red lock of hair behind her ear.

“I’m pregnant.”

“What? Why?”

“What?”

“Why would you want one of those-“

“Bella! Please, focus. I’m pregnant and....and there’s been a prophecy. A prophecy ab-“

Bella gasps. She crosses the room and shoves her hand against Lily’s mouth. “Such magics are fickle things. They were not tamed by wizards or elves. They are borne from Mother Magic herself. Do not speak any more, you fool!”

Lily’s green eyes widen, flick down Bella’s imposing frame.

“You’re afraid,” she breathes, stepping out of her desperate grip.

“Of course I am! You mustn’t say a thing, not to anyone except the Listeners. We wizards manipulated magic, gave it rules and names, but the older magics, the ancient ones, they have no rules or names. They are unpredictable. Utter chaos. Keep that pretty mouth shut if you know what’s good for you.”

With that, Bella shoves her out of the way, meaning to escape before the ignorant mudblood ruins all of their lives, but a strong hand clamps on her wrist. She sneers down at it, all freckled and common against her silk sleeve.

“I don’t care about any of that,” Lily whispers.

Bella closes her eyes and takes a long, deep breath in.

“I didn’t understand you at first, Bellatrix Black, but I do know. I will let the world burn if it means my baby stays safe.”

Bella opens her eyes with a groaned curse. She doesn’t need legilimency to know Potter speaks the truth. It’s in the hard set of her jaw, the jut of her chin. 

“Sirius agreed to be the godfather. It seems you and Regulus finally got through that thick skull of his. This child will be the Black heir up until the time Sirius has his own.”

Dread crawls up Bella’s spine.

“What do you want, that you hope to manipulate me so?” She hisses.

“I want your word. Your word that you will protect my baby. Dumbledore is already talking about them like they’re some kind of we-“

“NOT ANOTHER WORD!” Bella shrieks.

Papers flutter on the counter behind them. Lily has enough sense to grip her wand and loosen her wrist. Bella would win, of course, but she isn’t sure she wants too now. A Black heir born free of the madness that has tainted their family for generations. It could change everything.

“What do you want?” Bella hisses.

“Protect my baby. If anything happens, I want you to protect it. I know you. I know what you’re capable of. I know what you’d do for your family. I know this isn’t what you want or what you’d ever expect, but my child is the future of the Black name. Protect him from them all.”

“You don’t know what you ask of me.”

“I do! I know it’s-“

“No. If I must protect him, I will raise him as a Black. Not a Potter or a...whatever I’m supposed to call you now.”

Lily Potter did not balk. She looked Bellatrix in the eye and said, “You say that like I still think it’s a bad thing. Regulus was the bravest man I’ve ever met.”

When they emerge from the office with their arms intertwined, the werewolf stares at them for a beat too long, smiles warmly, and takes them out for fish and chips. Bella likes to think she’s training him well.

Lily and James die, because that’s how these things go. Bellatrix is the only one who isn’t shocked, which solidifies everyone’s opinion that Sirius betrayed them. The simple truth is that Bella knows what a shit place the world is. It gave them Harry Potter and so his parents were the price to pay. She tries her damndest to get her cousin a trial. Everyone, even Dromeda, turns her away. Six months later she accepts defeat and starts another battle.

It takes seven months, thirty one thousand galleons, five crucios, and one blood curse, but she and Dromeda and Kingsley Shacklebolt apparate to a horrendous row of houses on clear autumn day. For all that Lily was neat and meticulous, she had soul. This place is barren.

“She would have hated it here,” Bella hears herself say

Dromeda eyes her curiously. “You really cared for her, didn’t you?”

“She knew how batshit I am and loved me anyway,” is all Bella can think to say.

With that, she stomps up to the red door and presses the buzzer. Except it doesn’t buzz like the werewolf’s flat does. It chimes a tinkering melody that sets her teeth on edge. There are footsteps, a childish scream, and the door cracks open to reveal a horse faced woman with Lily Potter’s nose and nothing else. She hisses at the sight of Bella’s unruly curls and Kingsley’s red auror robes.

“You freaks are not welcome,” she snarls.

She tries to close the door, but Bella’s dragonhide boot wedges it open. She lets all of her madness rise to her eyes as she croons, “A god doesn’t care for the opinions of ants.” Bella puts all of her body weight behind the door and pushes. The muggle slams to the ground, the door crashes against a table, and Bella forces her way in. 

“Crone’s tits, it’s even worse inside!”

Dromeda, for once, does not chastise her. She merely looks around with a distasteful curl to her lips.

“That face makes you look like mummy.”

Not that Bella can blame her. It’s all so empty. So desolate. A fat man and an even fatter baby beam up with frozen smiles through oddly carved photo frames. There are a few with the cowering bitch as well, but there are none of a green-eyed, raven haired little boy.

“Where is Harry?” Bella demands.

The woman flinches, burying deeper into the plush white carpet.

“Where is he?!”

Her watery eyes glance somewhere over Bella’s shoulder, fear evident in every muscle of her body. Bella turns, follows her gaze, and finds nothing except a set of stairs and an open kitchen door. She pulls her wand. A dizzying sense of lust washes over her. It has been so long, so many months since she’s got to play with anyone.

“Where. Is. My. Nephew.”

Her thin lips part once, twice, and again she looks past Bella. Back to the kitchen and the set of stairs. Andromeda curses under her breath. She shoves Kingsley into the wall to get past him. Bella doesn’t understand. She can’t put it together, why Drom would go through her closets, until a thin baby with wild hair is pulled out, his eyes blinking wildly in the bright light.

“CRUCIO!”

Petunia Dursley arcs off the floor, her eyes wide with shock. It’s beautiful, the way her fingers curl into themselves, how her toes point like a dancers. She doesn’t scream until the spell is released and Bella casts it again, reveling in the power, in the way the tendons in her hands turn white.

“That’s enough Bella,” Dromeda says coolly.

Harry Potter is curled against her torso, watching them all with bright, curious eyes. He stares at Bella as if he remembers her. Maybe he does. She’s met him twice. Maybe he’s malleable brain has tried to latch on to every memory as some sort of self preservation. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he’s just a baby that sees a woman with wild hair and big tits and thinks she’d be nice to cuddle with.

“Hello Harry. I’m sorry it took me so long.”

He sticks his fist in his mouth stupidly.

“Look! He’s James made over.”

Kingsley glances from Bella to the crying thing on the floor to Harry and then back to Bella. Andromeda sucks in a breath. Oh. That’s right. Crucio is illegal. That was foolish. She shouldn’t have done that in front of Kingsley. He’s competent; it wouldn’t do well to kill him.

“We should get back before we miss our reservation,” he says.

He steps on Petunia Dursley’s belly to open the door. She hacks out another sob-scream. Andromeda and Bella make sure to do the same on the way out.

Harry is sent back to the Dursleys, because that’s how these things go. Bella, her sister, and the werewolf share a bottle of Ogden’s in the Tonks’s back garden. It’s a beautiful night. Their house is undoubtedly muggle. It doesn’t share the history or the sentience of a proper wizarding home, but it is cozy. There is color and texture and the ever present smell of baking bread. The telly is nestled between spellbooks and belladonna is drying next to the landline. Andromeda’s life isn’t as distinguished as their father had hoped, but it is full and undoubtedly hers.

It’s more than Bella can say.

Andromeda throws back her tumbler of fire whiskey.

“I believe you about Sirius,” she says.

Lupin tenses. He’s Gryffindor to the bone, intransigent and pig-headed. He has made up his mind about Sirius and nothing can change it.

Bella snorts. “Bully for you, sister mine. It’s too late now. I’ve used up all my illegals to see young Harry.”

Lupin chokes on his drink. Andromeda raises a brow, but knows better than to ask questions. It’s never wise to get caught between a Black and the law.

“What are we to do, then? The Dark Lord isn’t dead. It’s only a matter of time until he returns.”

She casts a fearful glance at Nymphadora, who’s hair changes from pink to the lurid yellow of the fairies chasing her across the grass.

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve been given orders from Dumbledore,” Bella says haughtily.

Drom laughs. It makes her looks so much like Cissy that pain sears through Bella’s chest.

“Why would he ever think he could tell you what to do?” Her sister asks.

“Probably because I went along with it.” She tosses her curls over her shoulder. “He said I need to keep my mind occupied. Suggested I go on a research expedition.”

Lupin’s fingers grip his glass worryingly tight. “Does he know?”

“No. I don’t even think he suspects. He just wants me occupied and away, so I let him believe I agreed. I thought to go to India first. Parselmouths are worshipped there. James Potter always said we could learn something from retracing the Dark Lord’s steps if we only had the time.”

“India? All on your own?” Andromeda cuts in, all concern and wariness.

“Of course not. The old coot wouldn’t let me out of sight without a handler. Lupin’s coming with me.”

He sputters and choked. Drom passes him a towel embroidered with dancing daisies. She’d always been best at the domestic charms, while Bella and Cissy had excelled at the darker, gorier ones.

“Pardon?” He asks once he manages to calm down.

“I’ve hired you as a watchdog. You’ll follow me around and help me research and try to keep me from killing to many people. I’ve already paid for international portkeys for Harry’s visits.”

“Merlin! International portkeys once a month? That’s expensive.”

Bella dismisses his plebeianism with a wave of her hand. “I spent over thirty thousand galleons on bribes alone. There’s nothing I won’t do for him. And I doubt we’ll be gone all twelve months, anyway. I can’t stay focused that long and I don’t want them to forget that House Black is still thriving.”

“Is it, though?”

“It’s got the three of you and your kids. If that isn’t something to be afraid of, then I don’t know what is,” Lupin says.

“You’ll be all alone with me in the jungle. You’d best be very afraid or you won’t get any treats.”


End file.
